Silencing the past: Social memory and the archaeology of the White Mountain Apache and Mormons in the Forestdale Valley, Arizona.

Abstract

I use documentary evidence, oral traditions, and archaeological remains to examine a brief period of interaction between the White Mountain Apache and Mormon colonists in the Forestdale Valley. This research yields a holistic understanding of the nature of Apache and Mormon interactions in the Forestdale Valley. Archaeological evidence and oral traditions support the claim that Apache people reoccupied the homes of the Mormon colonists after their expulsion. This may have been a symbolic as well as a practical act. Shortly thereafter the settlement was burned, resulting in the erasure of the physical evidence of a Mormon occupation. The complexities of Forestdale as a symbol to both groups are revealed through the interplay of social memory and silences in the past.